The Cricket and the Wild Rose
by Cassidy-Walker
Summary: A Victorian style Fairy Tale


The Cricket and the Wild Rose  
  
**a story told in the style of Oscar Wilde**  
By, Christine Pinkney  
  
Authors Note:  
  
All characters in this story is © C.Pinkney 2004. All rights reserved.  
  
A long time ago, before you and I were even thought of, before your grandpa or grandma was born, perhaps even before your great grandparents were born there was a large house. The house was situated on the loveliest of hills surrounded by endless forests where wild things roamed. The house was three stories high and had great long narrow windows which were made up of tiny rectangle panes. For the most part the house was dark, and rarely did anyone in the neighbouring village speak of an occupant. But our story doesn't take place in the house; no it takes place in a garden.  
  
The owner of the house loved his garden and kept a high wall around it, and it was common belief that this was to prevent any ordinary person from looking in and seeing the wonders therein. It was also thought that this garden was special, yet if you could see what the robin saw, you would know that this garden was not very special at all. In fact, it had suffered from years and years of neglect. Weeds grew up where there were once flower beds, and all the wild plants of the fields and forest now resided in that walled enclosure. Broken pottery and other vestiges of wealth were scattered about, now homes to hedgehogs and rabbits. All in all, the garden had become wild and untamed.  
  
It was in this garden that a young cricket lived, just beyond the fountain of Adonis, and making his home under the heavy leaved ivy he lived a comfortable life. He enjoyed being one of the most popular members of the garden society, and relished sharing his gift of music with the other socialites. He was a handsome cricket with a shiny suit of perfect jade, mixed with hues of emerald, amethyst, and aqua marine. His eyes were like two tiny onyx stones, brilliant and bright. He was indeed a very handsome cricket and by all accounts of Old John Beetle and references by Lord Silas Slug, he was, by far, a most suitable suitor for any young bee or butterfly that should happen to flit their way into the garden.  
  
The garden still held onto its aristocratic roots, and there were many plants from foreign lands that managed to survive the invasion of the more domesticated countryside residents. One in particular was a wild rose. She was brought to the garden from a far off land, across a wide ocean. She was the most beautiful of roses and the gardener had spent many an hour grooming her and preening her, yet she was not to be groomed or preened like the more placid English roses. No, she was a wild rose, and soon, the gardener throwing his scissors onto the path in exasperation, gave up on trying to control her. She grew, and grew spreading her arms out and filling up the entire wall with her foliage. All the plants in the garden watched in awe, and when the first bud bloomed, they gasped. She was not like the other roses whose blooms were full and smelled sweetly yet not too sweet to make you sick. No, her bloom was simple, it unfurled and her aroma was like nothing the other plants had smelled before. They shunned the rose and during the harsh winters, they hid from her under the ground. The rose felt cold, and when the frosts came, she felt them bite deep into her stems down to her roots. Her petals dropped to the cold earth like tears, she lowered her head and died.  
  
The sun came out, and the earth warmed, the rose felt the great sun's kiss upon her brow, and with a supernatural power she felt a new energy flow through her. Her leaves began to become green again, her stems and roots drank up the warm sunshine. Hark! What is this?! From the earth there was something moist, water, her roots stretched down and drank the water until she was sated. She could feel something different in her, a new hope. It was summer.  
  
Upon that summer's eve the cricket being in a jovial mood himself, as throughout the winter he took a holiday outside the garden wall, returning to the garden with new tales to tell and many new songs to sing. The garden society was quite excited when news of his arrival was announced by the bull frog. The daisies were a flutter, and the frogs leapt from the bog. The hedgehogs now numbering a nice count of twenty-five, made plans. Tonight was to be the night of the mid-summers ball. All the flowers were to put on their best show at twilight and the entire garden was to be entertained by the well travelled cricket.  
  
The rose over heard this and was curious. She arced her head over and listened curiously. Suddenly, she jumped. She looked down, and by Jove, upon her leaf was the cricket himself. She smiled meekly at him, and wondered why such a celebrity would choose her of all the beautiful flowers in the garden to rest upon.  
  
The cricket looked up at the rose and wonder filled his eyes. Never had he seen such a unique and original flower. The perfume went to his head and he fell madly in love with the wild rose. He bowed his little head and began to play a haunting melody. He played his best for the rose, and devoted himself to her.  
  
The rose however, was startled by this. She had never known love and furthermore she did not see what she could possibly afford a cricket, even a celebrity, well travelled cricket. But she did love his music, and he was such a talented musician. She understood why all the other creatures in the garden loved him so.  
  
The cricket came to the rose every night just at twilight, before the nightingale sang his mournful song. All summer long the cricket came and all summer long the rose listened. How the cricket loved the rose, how he wished that she would love him in return. The rose kept silent though, nodding her head to the beat, and giggling through her leaves at a sudden zephyr. The cricket wooed the rose with stories about the lands beyond the garden wall, about the riches of kings, and the sorrows of unrequited love. And such sorrow was in the little cricket's heart, still he sang on, and still he watched.  
  
One late lazy summer afternoon, the little cricket sat on his ivy bed, tired from a night of reverie he fell into a deep sleep. He was awoken by a loud grating noise. He sat up annoyed and threw open the door to his abode. Outside was a large bumblebee. It was the biggest bumblebee he had ever seen, and to his shock and disgust the bee was attacking his rose. He stormed out of the ivy shelter into the bright sunlight and demanded the bee to let his love alone. The bee turned around and mocked the little cricket.  
  
"I'm bigger than you, I'm faster than you, and I'm smarter than you. Now let me do my job and you mind your business!"  
  
The cricket was quite irate at this outburst, but with a smooth tone, he replied.  
  
"You may be bigger than I, and perhaps faster than I, although I seriously doubt you are smarter than I, but there is one thing you aren't that I am...."  
  
The bee growled, "What?"  
  
The cricket grinned, looking up at the wall. Upon which sat a rather large hungry looking lizard. The bee hardly had a chance to look up when, SNAP, the lizard caught him in his tongue and swallowed the bee in one gulp.  
  
The cricket mused, "Lunch".  
  
The rose had no idea how to react to such bravery. She only knew the little cricket to be an artist, not a hero. How she wished that she could speak to the cricket, to tell him, to let him know how much she loved him. How she admired him. How she adored him. But alas, she couldn't.  
  
Years passed and the cycle continued as it always has, and will from now until the end of time. The rose grew more and more, but the cricket, seemed weaker. His visits were not as frequent, and some of his suit had lost its lustre. The flowers of the garden didn't speak much of the cricket, and the frogs made fun of him. They called him a crazy fool, and even the old white owl that sat in the great hawthorn tree shook his head with a mournful twit-twoo in sympathy of the poor cricket's demise.  
  
One summer the sun had kissed the rose again and she awoke after an especially bitter winter. She rose up and stretched her roots down to the earth below and her leaves to the sky above. She opened her face to the sun and breathed fresh and renewed. She looked for the cricket, but he did not come. She waited hour after hour, week after week, and month after month, yet the cricket did not come. Summer faded into fall, and her petals faded and dropped like tears, the wind shook her hard and she again sank into sleep, but when her head lowered she saw below her, at the base of her stalk the tiny lifeless body of the little cricket. She closed her eyes, and her heart broken into a thousand pieces. The winter came and the rose faded and died withering into a brown husk. Her body, for the first time, united with that of the crickets in an eternal waltz.  
  
As legends go, if you find the grand house on the hill, surrounded by a great forest where the wild things were, and if you find that garden, you will see forever embedded in the earth a place where no flowers bloom. Many a gardener will testify to have tried, but they say that the earth there is tainted. Because it is there that love died.  
  
The End. 


End file.
